This invention relates to general additive manufacturing devices such as 3-D printers which may utilize a variety of technologies, including extrusion deposition, granular melting and sintering, powder bed and binder, and light polymerisation. The system is particularly suited for, but not limited to, devices that are automated such that a finished job can be removed from the printing volume and the next job started without any manual human actions.
Conventional additive manufacturing devices require a toolchain with numerous different software applications for various steps in the process. All process feedback such as dimensional accuracy and surface finish must be measured and evaluated manually, with no systematic way of integrating this feedback to improve system function.
Efficiently operating an additive manufacturing device to produce objects that meet designer-specified tolerances involves minimizing machine time per job, operator time, material consumption and overall machine downtime in order to maximize throughput and limit material and personnel cost. An ideal system would operate around the clock and only produce objects within the specified tolerances without requiring a human operator.
In reality, a variety of issues result in failed jobs, objects that do not meet tolerance requirements, and unnecessary machine downtime. Manually controlling these issues, especially on low-cost additive manufacturing devices, requires a significant amount of operator time to pre-inspect parts, input various machine parameters to meet specified tolerance requirements, monitor the job manually, remove the object after completion, measure the object to test adherence to specified tolerance requirements, and iteratively repeat the process until the object meets the specified requirements.